


Together

by glitterpop



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Blood, Character Death, Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpop/pseuds/glitterpop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tadashi should have known better than to run off by himself during a zombie apocalypse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO this entire thing was inspired by [jamnsfw's](http://www.jamnsfw.tumblr.com) zombie!AU, which you can see [HERE](http://jamnsfw.tumblr.com/post/106590540402/zombie-au-maybe-uh-will-draw-more), [HERE](http://jamnsfw.tumblr.com/post/106595457787/ohhhh-noooooo-zombie-au) and [HERE](http://jamnsfw.tumblr.com/post/106599385977/i-needed-a-nice-aftermath-to-that-other-pic-shhh). PLEASE go check out their blog! They do amazing art and they're also a very sweet person!!

The world had gone to hell so quickly.

There had been a lot of arguments across countries at first, a lot of finger pointing and accusations. No one could agree where the outbreak really started, and everyone was eager to lay blame on anyone but themselves. That hadn’t lasted long though. It had spread faster than anyone could have predicted, and no one could seem to keep it from getting out of control. It had only taken half a year before it reached San Fransokyo.

Hiro had laughed when news had started to get out. Most everybody had. They laughed the loud, nervous laughter of people that didn’t want to believe. It seemed so _preposterous;_ things like this only happened in movies, there was no way it could really be happening. Tadashi had smiled when Hiro made jokes, but they were thin and strained. He didn’t want to believe, Hiro could tell, but he was nervous all the same. Hiro thought it was kind of silly.

Time went on, though, and things didn’t get better. People watched the news and laughed less, saw things getting worse and worse and eventually stopped laughing all-together. They watched what was happening in other countries, eyes bleak, all trying to keep going on with their lives and all silently wondering if it was happening in their own country. Everywhere Hiro went, there was always that one word whispered under someone’s breath, no one brave enough quite yet to say it loudly in public.

“It’s just, _zombies_?” Hiro had asked one night, sitting on Tadashi’s bed before they went to sleep, watching his brother read. Tadashi had frowned but said nothing. “Those are movie monsters. B-list monsters at that! None of this should be happening!”

“It’s not like your movies, Hiro, and you know it.” Tadashi had spoken as kindly as he could, but he couldn’t help the edge that had been in his voice. Hiro had pursed his lips together but hadn’t said anything. He had known Tadashi was just worried, thinking through the what-if’s that could happen. And there would have been no point arguing something they both knew was true.

No one could get close enough without getting attacked to examine these people, but scientists were saying that these zombies had never actually died, only to come back. They said that they were just very sick, that their brains were bleeding and leaking blood out their ears and eyes. They said that parts of their brains were either rotting or shutting down, causing these people to turn violent and attack those around them. That had sounded as good as being dead to Hiro, though.

The victims could still form words, broken sentences coming when they weren’t screaming with hate. They could track the people that were running from them, and while they couldn’t open a door that wasn’t able to be pushed open, they could certainly break glass and get inside.

That didn’t keep people from calling them zombies, though. They still could transfer whatever it was that made them sick through bites, and they still ate their victims. They still shuffled when they weren’t sprinting after someone. Wounds didn’t seem to bother them at all, they just kept going until their heads were destroyed. Zombies were zombies, Hiro still figured, but he hadn’t wanted to say so then.

“Fine,” Hiro had huffed petulantly, flopping next to his brother on the bed. A part of him had still wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation just so he would feel a little better. He’d known Tadashi wouldn’t have appreciated it though, so he’d stayed silent.

He wished he felt like laughing now, hiding in an abandoned house waiting for his brother to show up.

It had happened so quickly, when it finally did happen. It started out a normal day, their aunt Cass out for groceries, him and Tadashi watching some dumb movie—he couldn’t even remember what it was now—when they began to hear screaming coming from outside. Faint, then swelling to a crescendo, the sound of people screaming in fear and pain. There were louder screams, sounding less human and more animal, rising and falling in between the sound of human panic. Tadashi had tensed completely next to him before rushing to the window, looking out into the streets below.

“Oh God,” was all he had said, looking outside with horror morphing his face. It was all he had needed to say; Hiro knew exactly what was happening out there just looking at his brother.

“What do we do?” he had asked, surprised that the words had gotten past his closed throat.

They had talked about it before, briefly. The café wasn’t the best place to try and hide; too many windows, too many ways to get in. Too many ways to get cornered, Tadashi had said with a grimace. They’d all decided to get as much stuff as they could together and leave, find a store to stock up in and find somewhere more secure. Get their friends along the way too.

That had been assuming they would have had some advanced notice, though. That had been assuming they were all together. Aunt Cass had been gone, with no way of knowing where she was at the time, and they’d been caught completely off guard.

Hiro remembered what happened next very vaguely, all of it having happened in a blur for him. They’d gotten together what they needed as quick as they could, and Hiro had watched Tadashi curse, wishing for better weapons than the baseball bats they had. There were no guns in the house though, and Hiro had told him they could find something better on the way. They’d gotten out of the house just as they heard the sound of breaking glass come from the café.

The streets had been in a panic. People sprinting, running and giving chase. Some of them were fighting back, but most were just trying to get away. Hiro had seen multiple people being tackled before Tadashi had pulled him towards the garage.

They’d somehow gotten away on Tadashi’s moped. They wanted to find their aunt, their friends. Tadashi had briefly suggested trying to go get Baymax from SFIT. The city was catching fire, though, and with the streets piling up with bodies that either stayed still or started to get up themselves, they figured it was safer to leave for now.

“We’ll come back when the fires die down,” Tadashi had said, swiveling his head around to look out for an ambush. Hiro had caught the tail end of a grimace on his face when he said that and wondered if anyone would be there if they did come back. They’d driven along though, eventually having to ditch the moped when the city thinned out to suburbia, where the noise would just attract attention they didn’t need. They’d found a house with no one left in it and done what they could to barricade it. And there they had stayed for the last week and a half, scared but together.

Together until Hiro had woken up that morning only to find a note from his brother saying that he’d gone to get supplies, to not worry, that he’d be back soon and that Hiro should stay inside where it was safe.

“Stupid,” Hiro muttered now, huddled close to the door to listen for his brother’s return. He couldn’t believe Tadashi would sneak off while he was asleep like this. Those things were still outside; every day they could hear the sounds of them moving, the occasional scream of rage. They’d boarded up the windows, but there was a small gap in between the boards on one of the windows in the front of the house. They looked out it occasionally, watching what used to be human wander around outside, turning on each other when they got to close together.

It was true they were running low on food, but they should have gone out together. What was the point in splitting up? Hiro had no idea; they were safer together, where they could watch each other’s backs and protect the other in case of attack. Tadashi was more vulnerable alone out there than Hiro was alone in this house. He was going to tear his brother a new one when he got back for putting his life in danger like this.

 _If he comes back,_ he thought. He quickly shoved the thought out of his head though. Tadashi would come back.

Tadashi _had_ to come back because Hiro didn’t think he could handle it if he didn’t.

It was past noon now, though, and Hiro had been awake for hours now. He didn’t know when Tadashi had left, but he knew he should have been back by now. He would have been worried about Hiro, he was _always_ worried about Hiro. There’s no way Tadashi would have just left him on his own for this long on purpose.

“It’s fine,” he said quietly, trying to reassure himself. “He’s just being careful not to get caught. He’ll be back soon and you can get mad at him then.” He threw a glance to the baseball bat next to him. He wished he had something better, a gun maybe, but he didn’t think he’d be able to pull the trigger on a gun. He wasn’t sure if he could beat someone with a bat, either, but at least he was more comfortable with the object. At least he had more experience with it. He smiled a little, thinking about when he and Tadashi used to play baseball with just each other. His smile faded as the worry came back, wondering where his brother was.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he sat there, trying and failing to not think of the worst, before he finally heard a soft knocking at the door. His heart skipped a beat before shooting its way up his throat, and he scrambled up from his seat on the floor to unlock the door. He paused with his fingers on the lock, though, thinking to the zombies out there. He’d never seen one knock on a door before, but…

It wouldn’t hurt to check either way, just to make sure.

He rushed to the window with the gap in the boards. Pressing himself close, trying not to expose too much of himself, he looked towards the door. His breath rushed out of him in a single sigh of relief at the sight of his brother, standing on the stoop with his head bowed. He was about to push away from the window, ready to unlock the door and ream his brother out about his reckless behavior. It was supposed to be Hiro’s job to pull this kind of stuff, he would say, and Tadashi should never ever worry him like that again.

But then his eyes caught on the blood.

Blood dripping from his ears, streaking down Tadashi’s face from his eyes like bloody tears. Hiro could see some of it leaking from the corners of his mouth and choked on a sudden sob. He could see the veins in Tadashi’s neck that had started to turn black with sickness. Tadashi hadn’t come back at all and never would. Some monster had come to him instead, wearing his brother’s skin like a bad disguise. He slid down the wall, feeling numb.

He sat there for a minute, staring blankly at the door, when another round of soft knocking came from the other side. His breath hitched in his chest. Feeling like his head was stuffed with cotton, Hiro crawled on hands and knees back to the door. He touched the handle of the bat, not grasping it, wondering if he could do it.

He had to, he told himself. What was out there was no longer his brother. Maybe it looked like Tadashi, maybe it had been Tadashi only hours ago, perhaps not even that long. It wasn’t him, though. It couldn’t be, it never would be, and he couldn’t let that thing walk free while it looked like the most important person in his life.

It wasn’t his brother out there.

“Hiro.”

And yet.

“Tadashi,” he whispered, and finally began to cry.

Pressing himself up against the door, he tried to stifle the sobs escaping from him without much success. Tadashi was _gone,_ Tadashi was gone and now he was all alone. Alone with this thing just on the other side of the door, knocking like he thought Hiro would let him in without question.

What was he going to do? How could he get back to the city to find Aunt Cass and their friends on his own? He didn’t think he could do it without Tadashi. How could he even think of leaving this house, knowing what was waiting for him outside? It was too much. It was too much, and he cried mostly in grief and partly in fear of the growing sense of doom rising inside him.

“Hiro.” The voice, so familiar and so wrong still, came closer this time. Like Tadashi had crouched down to be level with him. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay.

Nothing would ever be okay anymore.

He pressed his head harder against the door, wishing he was back in his own home, with Tadashi just one the other side of the divider. He wished Aunt Cass was just down stairs, making dinner and bouncing new ideas for the café off of Mochi. He wished he had his friends with him right now, to help him, to tell him what to do.

“It’s okay,” the voice said again, and it was still wrong because the warmth Tadashi always carried inside him when he talked to Hiro was gone now. It was replaced by a scary flatness that could have never belonged to his big brother.

 _Get a hold of yourself,_ he thought to himself harshly, trying to control his breathing. He needed to stop crying. He needed to pick himself up and find a way out of this situation. There were other doors in the house, though they’d been blocked off. He could get out through one of those, sneak away. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough to fight off a group of zombies, but he was small and quiet. He might be able to reach the city again on his own if he was careful. He just needed to stop crying and get up.

What about Tadashi though? It wasn’t his brother out there, not really, not anymore. But it was close enough to him to have Hiro consider what to do about it. He could just sneak away from it like he had planned. That would leave it to wander around and attack whoever else it saw though. The zombies were crazy and violent, Hiro knew that much, and that was the complete opposite of his brother. Tadashi had never wanted to hurt anybody, and letting his brother’s body do exactly that would be like slapping the memory of Tadashi right across the face.

Tadashi had wanted Hiro to be safe, but Hiro knew he had to take care of this, if only to give his dead brother some sort of peace.

Choking back his tears, he once again reached out for the bat, this time firmly grasping and lifting it. Standing, scrubbing his face, he took a few deep breaths. He had to be calm and steady for this. He only had the one shot, he knew that much. He had to make it count. Taking one final deep breath, he reached forward and unlocked the door before twisting it open and taking a few small steps backwards.

 _It’s not your brother out there,_ he reminded himself fiercely, holding the bat in the ready position.

And there it stood, what once had been his big brother. Tadashi’s eyes seemed very large in his face, leaking blood down his cheeks. The black veins were spreading from the neck to the face, and Hiro could see them starting to poke out from under its sleeves as well. It bled from the ears and eyes, and even the mouth, which was set in a soft sort of smile.

 _It’s not your brother,_ he told himself again, watching as Tadashi eyed the bat calmly while he stepped forward. Just one good swing, that was all Hiro needed. Just one good swing would hopefully be enough to take it down. Or at least stun it enough to finish the job.

He could see where Tadashi had been attacked, the right arm of his sleeve partially torn away. A chunk of his bicep was missing, and Hiro thought he could have maybe seen the pink of the muscle if the wound wasn’t still oozing blood in thick, dark clumps. He couldn’t see the muscle, but he could see where deep inside, it was starting to turn black like the veins reaching up its neck.

_It’s not your brother anymore._

“Hiro.”

And yet.

The bat shook in his hands, attached to arms he couldn’t move, before it slipped out of his grip. He paid little attention to the clatter of its fall, too focused on his dead brother’s face. He fell to his knees and realized distantly that he had started to cry again.

He couldn’t do it. He _couldn’t_ , he knew he couldn’t, and he buried his face in his hands _._ It didn’t matter that his brother was dead, that this wasn’t really him. It still looked enough like him, still smiled like him even if it was missing the warmth in his eyes. It was still close enough to his brother that he couldn’t bring himself to beat it to death like he needed. He briefly wished he had had a gun instead of a flimsy bat, but he didn’t think he’d be able to pull the trigger on it either, wouldn’t be able to put a bullet between those flat eyes.

He felt arms wrap around him and jolted back, crying out miserably. It had come to him, and sat on its knees in front of Hiro, and now it was holding him like it thought that could make this better. Tadashi’s body was still warm, and another cry tore out of Hiro’s throat.

“It’s okay,” it whispered, pressing its cheek to Hiro’s. Hiro felt the smear of blood against his skin and began to cry harder, feebly struggling. “Me and you. Together.” Hiro shuddered, confused. Did this thing really want to stay with Hiro? How could he allow that, having to look at his brother’s face and know he wasn’t even there anymore? How could Hiro ever stay with it knowing what it used to be?

“No,” he choked out, still struggling.

“Together,” this thing, this creature that used to be Tadashi insisted. “Together. Just hold still.”

The arms around Hiro tightened, and he only had the time to inhale before he felt teeth dig and tear into his shoulder.

Hiro screamed, in fear and pain, but the teeth dug out of his skin without taking anything with them. He began to struggle harder, pushing himself violently away from the creature, and saw the large smear of blood across its mouth. It pulled him back in, though, and began to gently rock.

“Together always,” it whispered, seemingly trying to soothe.

Hiro screamed and screamed until he couldn't anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell at me, I reblog dumb things on my [tumblr over here](http://www.glitterpukesoul.tumblr.com)


End file.
